Video cards. PowerColor X1900 GT video cards: PCB design and cooling system design
So, the event that was perhaps the most gossiped about on the Internet over the past month has come true: ATI Technologies has officially introduced a new line of Radeon X1900 graphics processors and a number of solutions based on it.
Today our readers are offered the first material in a series of studies of the capabilities of the Radeon X1900 chips, and, in addition to the introductory theoretical part, devoted mainly to architectural and technological improvements of the chip, we have the opportunity to present the results of the first tests of the ATI Radeon X1900XTX CrossFire solution, conducted in our laboratory .
The new ATI Radeon X1900 graphics family, presented today, includes three versions of chips - Radeon X1900XT, Radeon X1900XTX and Radeon X1900XTX CrossFire Edition. Chip Radeon X1900XTX operates at a clock frequency of 650 MHz, 512 MB of GDDR3 memory – at a clock frequency of 1550 MHz. The characteristics are somewhat more modest: chip/memory clock frequency - 625 MHz/1450 MHz (512 MB GDDR3). Finally in the maps version Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition The chip operates at a clock frequency of 625 MHz, the memory at a frequency of 1450 MHz. In general, we can say that the new chips have clock speeds comparable to the X1800 series. In most cases, the Radeon X1900 XTX and X1900 XT cards are promised to use 1.1 ns GDDR3 memory from Samsung, although the sample ATI Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition Master card we tested installed Samsung memory with an access time of 1.25 ns, which corresponds to a frequency of 1600 MHz DDR.
In addition, it is expected that a little later ATI will present a “lightweight” version of the X1900XT chip called , with 256 MB or 512 MB of memory. Obviously, this most inexpensive solution from the new leading series will be designed to fill the vacuum that will certainly form in the price niche of $199 to $499 after the curtailment of sales of the Radeon X1800 series. It seems that no one doubts that the supply of Radeon X1800 cards will now be curtailed and they will face a fate similar to the NV30. The same price range will most likely include versions based on the upcoming mainstream core RV560, which, according to rumors, will receive a marketing name Radeon X1700. So far this information is only at the level of rumors, but the same rumors “promise” the announcement of the Radeon X1700 series before the end of the first quarter of 2006, so the wait is not long left. There are also assumptions and conjectures that ATI will not deny itself the pleasure of expanding the multimedia series with cards Radeon X1900 All-In-Wonder with a Radeon X1900XL class chip and GDDR3 memory with a clock frequency of 1.5 GHz (1.26 ns).
The technological process used in the manufacture of Radeon X1900 series chips remains the same - this is 90 nm at the factories of the Taiwanese TSMC, however, the dimensions of the chip have grown, mainly due to improved architecture and an increase in various modules. Thus, the total number of transistors on the chip is now 384 million. It is not surprising that the instruction manual for the Radeon X1900 series cards suggests use a power supply with a rated power of at least 450 W, providing a current in the 12 V channel of at least 30 A. At the same time, for normal operation of a system based on the X1900XTX CrossFire Edition, a 550 W power supply is required with a mandatory minimum of 38 A in the 12 V channel .
Despite the change in the architecture of the Radeon X1900 chips, ATI engineers managed to achieve their backward electrical compatibility with the previous generation - Radeon X1800, thanks to which ATI partners will be able to start producing new cards quickly enough without changing the design of printed circuit boards. The main thing is that there would be enough graphics processors themselves. ATI management assures that the percentage of suitable R580 chips being released is significantly higher than the situation at the time of the R520 announcement and there will be no delays; mass deliveries of new products will begin today. Whether this is so, we will see in the near future, although this link can be cited as indirect confirmation: already last Sunday, samples of RADEON X1900 XTX and RADEON X1900 XT cards in ATI “branded” packaging were spotted in the windows of Tokyo stores. SAPPHIRE RADEON X1900 XTX PCI Express x16 (X1900XTX 512M PCI-E D-D/VIVO) cards are also offered in OEM delivery, however, at the exorbitant price of ¥82900 (something around $720).
SAPPHIRE RADEON X1900 XT
SAPPHIRE RADEON X1900 XTX
SAPPHIRE RADEON X1900 XTX CrossFire Edition
Before moving on to detailed testing of the new graphics solution from ATI, let's look at the similarities and differences between the newly-minted Radeon X1900 series, which previously bore the working name ATI R580, compared to its predecessors - the Radeon X1800 (R520) series GPUs. What is especially confusing is the fact that the Radeon X1800 chips were introduced quite recently, in October - see our materials on this topic:
Let's look at the key specifications of the Radeon X1900 series chips:
- Full support for PCI Express X16 bus
- Full support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0
- Eight vertex processors
- Forty-eight pixel shader processing pipelines(pixel shader processors). For comparison: 16 for X1800 (R520), 8 for X1600 (RV530), 4 for X1300 (RV515)
- Sixteen texture units (TMU, Texture Mapping Unit)
- 256 MB or 512 MB (up to 1 GB) 8-channel GDDR3 graphics memory (with future support for GDDR4).
- Internal 512-bit memory ring bus, 256-bit interface (uses 8 512-bit GDDR3 memory chips); programmable arbitration logic, new design of associative texture, color and Z/stencil caches, hierarchical Z-buffer, Z-compression with lossless compression (up to 48:1), fast Z-buffer clearing
- Optimized performance for high-resolution displays, including HDTV widescreen mode
- Decoding of all DTV/HDTV formats
- Smooth Vision Technology
- AA modes - 2x/4x/6x, with lossless compression at up to 6:1 ratios in all resolutions
- Anisotropic Filtering modes - 2x/4x/8x/16x
- Adaptive Per-Pixel Transformation
- Ultra-Threaded Shader Engine - multi-threaded data processing, up to 512 pixel threads simultaneously, full-speed processing of 128-floating point data
- Improved branch prediction and thread processing
- Up to 1536 instructions per pass
- Supports high resolution texture processing (up to 4k x 4k)
- Texture compression with 64-bit FP precision, including 3Dc+
- High quality 4:1 compression for normal and luminance mapping
- OpenGL 2.0 support
- High Dynamic Range (HDR) rendering
So, the main advantage of the new series of Radeon X1900 graphics chips is the unprecedented number of pixel shader processors, the number of which has been increased to forty-eight, which allows you to use the capabilities of the DirectX 9 API and Shader Model 3.0 to their full potential. The technical process used in the production of the Radeon X1900 remained the same - 90 nm, the number of transistors increased by about 20% compared to the Radeon X1800. Other key innovations were first implemented in the Radeon X1800 series, including Ultra-Threading, HDR with AA, Avivo, etc.
In order to clearly show the complexity of the architecture of the pixel shader processing module in the Radeon X1900 chips, I will present two slides, on the top of which is the X1800 pixel shader engine, on the bottom - the X1900.
In practice, the organization of the architecture of the X1900 shader engine remains the same, the 48 pixel processors of the chip are organized into groups of four cores (ATI Quad-pixel Shader Core), plus an array of general-purpose registers, sixteen texture addressing units and an Ultra-Threading distribution processor. The only difference is that the X1800 chip had 16 pixel processors.
Each pixel shader processor on the Radeon X1900 chip can execute from one to five shader instructions per clock cycle in various ALUs. A dedicated branch analysis module is designed to control the load of instruction threads. Each texture module and texture addressing unit, the loading of which is controlled by the Ultra-Threaded Dispatch Processor, can process up to four texture samples per clock cycle.
The Radeon X1900's fully associative cache architecture replicates the functionality found in the Radeon X1800, allowing access from anywhere in external memory, which is significantly more efficient than previously used Direct Mapped and N-Way associative cache architectures. Texture, color, Z and Stencil caches also have a fully associative structure.
To facilitate dynamic branching and increase the performance of shadow rendering technology, Radeon X1900 chips use a new texture sampling feature called Fetch4. The essence of the Fetch4 technology is to use the fact that textures are essentially sets of information about the color data of a point, each consisting of four components - Red, Green, Blue and transparency (Alpha). Texture units are thus designed to simultaneously model and filter all four components of a texture address. Thus, thanks to Ultra-Threading technology and Fetch4 texture matching, Radeon X1900 chips can produce soft colors faster than traditional shadow texturing technology.
Finally, a sore point for many is support for high resolutions in games. The Radeon X1900 chip features 50% more Hierarchical Z memory than its predecessor, the Radeon X1800, to help maintain high performance at high screen resolutions. Judging by the specifications, Radeon X1900 chips will easily support resolutions of 1920 x 1200 (WUXGA), 2048 x 1536 (QXGA), up to 2560x1600 (WQXGA).
Total: 48 pixel shader processors, Fetch4 technology and improved Hierarchial Z technology for working with high screen resolutions - these are the main innovations implemented in the Radeon X1900 series chips. For the details inherited by the Radeon X1900 from its predecessors in the X1000 series, I refer the curious reader to the basic material on this topic - X1000 - the new generation of ATI graphics.
How successful the Radeon X1900 chip turned out and what can be squeezed out of it, you will find out on the next page.
Perhaps only the most devoted fans and admirers of ATI do not recognize the fact that from the moment the NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX was released until the announcement of the Radeon X1900 XTX, Canadians in the Hi-End segment of video cards were always playing catch-up. However, exactly the same situation was with the release of the Radeon X1800 line, and in the average (at that time) price range the Radeon X1600 XT could not compete with the GeForce 6800 GS, and if there had not been a successful Radeon X800 GTO on the market then, it is not known which ATI would present its financial report for 2005 to its shareholders. It must be said that in the Low-End for the X1300 Pro, NVIDIA already had a worthy answer in the form of the GeForce 6600 DDR2. More recently, ATI released Radeon X1800 GTO, which at first was supposed to close the price niche to $300, but only a couple of weeks after the official announcement its recommended price was reduced to $249, and today such video cards can be purchased within this amount.
Thus, it turns out that a “hole” has appeared in the line of video cards produced by ATI in the price range from 250 to 350 US dollars. Of course, there is a representative of the previous generation of graphics cards on ATI chips - the Radeon X1800 XL, but it cannot withstand any competition with the GeForce 7800 GT and the GeForce 7900 GT, which is gradually approaching the $350 mark. Here we cannot help but recall the Radeon X1800 XT with a memory capacity of 256 MB, which in terms of price today is on par with the GeForce 7900 GT I have already mentioned. And so, ATI puts some of the R580 chips, originally intended for Hi-End Radeon X1900 XT (XTX) cards, under the knife and releases Radeon X1900 GT with a recommended price of $299, which is prior to the release of products based on the new RV570 chip and is designed to compete with the NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT, which NVIDIA recommends for sale at the same price.
So, the Radeon X1900 GT is a stripped-down version of the Radeon X1900 XT(XTX): the number of pixel pipelines (processors) is reduced from 48 to 36, and the rasterization units from 16 to 12, and the frequencies are reduced to 575/1200 MHz. The Radeon X1900 GT is equipped with a memory capacity of 256 MB, however, given that the same PCB is used as the Radeon X1900 XT (XTX), it is quite possible that we will soon be able to see such video cards with 512 MB of memory on board. Although, on the other hand, there is information that the number of Radeon X1900 GT is limited to only 25,000 units and such video cards will primarily be sold to OEM manufacturers, so we can assume that the X1900 GT will be a rare guest in retail sales. The same situation was observed last year, when the Radeon X800 GTO and GTO2 were released, which are stripped-down versions of the more powerful Radeon X850 XT (PE). At that time, it was assumed that the circulation of such cards would also be limited, but they can still be purchased freely to this day.
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Two Radeon X1900 GT samples produced by Sapphire and PowerColor (TUL) were subsequently provided for testing, which we will introduce you to today, examine their delivery package, features, check the temperature regime, overclocking potential, and even try to convert one of the cards into a Radeon X1900 XT. Before you start directly studying video cards, I suggest you look at the technical characteristics of the ATI Radeon X1800 XT, Radeon X1900 GT and NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT.1. Technical characteristics of ATI Radeon X1800 XT, Radeon X1900 GT and NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT
| Name of technical characteristics | ATI Radeon X1800 XT | ATI Radeon X1900 GT | NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT |
| date of release | November 30, 2005 (start of deliveries) | May 5, 2006 | March 9, 2006 |
| GPU name | R520 | R580 | G71 (TSMC) |
| Technological process, microns | 0.09 | ||
| Operating frequencies of graphics processors, MHz | 625 (594 for 2D mode) | 575 (500 for 2D mode) | 450 (470 geometric) |
| Operating frequencies of video memory, MHz | 1500 | 1200 | 1320 |
| Memory capacity, Mb | 256 / 512 | 256 | 256 |
| Memory type | GDDR-3 | ||
| Memory bus width, Bit | 256 | ||
| Interface | PCI-Express 16x | ||
| Number of pixel processors (pipelines), pcs. | 16 | 36 | 24 |
| Number of rasterization blocks, pcs. | 16 | 12 | 16 |
| Number of vertex processors, pcs. | 8 | ||
| Pixel Shaders/Vertex Shaders version support | 3.0 / 3.0 | ||
| Peak power consumption in 3D operating mode, W | ~112 | ~110 | |
| Power supply power requirements, W | ~450 (550 for CrossFire) | ~300 (550 for SLI) | |
| Dimensions of reference design video card, mm. (L x H x T) | 205 x 100 x 25 | 205 x 100 x 15 | 195 x 100 x 15 |
| Exits | 2 x DVI, TV-Out, HDTV-Out, support VIVO and Avivo technology | 2 x DVI, TV-Out, HDTV-Out, VIVO support | |
| Recommended / retail* price at the time of publication of the article, US dollars | 256 Mb - 299 / | ||
It would seem that just recently it was the beginning of June, the Computex exhibition, and summer flew by in a flash... The gloomy days of autumn are ahead.
But in the IT world everything is different. It’s as if this branch of the world industry lives exclusively in the southern hemisphere: in the summer there is a calm and sleepy kingdom, the closer to winter, the more and more active both producers and sellers are. The culmination of the year is ahead - Christmas and sales before this holiday. Yes, then the New Year, and back to work, so that after the spring turmoil, you can do the last “step” of this dance at Computex and go to rest until the fall.
This is a paradox in the human world, in contrast to nature. And only residents of the southern hemisphere live in complete harmony with the rhythm of life in the IT sphere. Because 90% of all development and production is carried out in the northern hemisphere :-)
Nature has set its sights on reducing the rhythm, peace and cold, and we have set our sights on the release of new products in the field of video accelerators. And they began to appear, most recently we studied the GeForce 7900GS, and now it’s our turn to study the product from ATI, announced back in August.
Then the Canadian manufacturer declared a general trend towards lower prices for top accelerators, because the recommended retail price for the X1950 XTX was set at $449, so all the younger brothers should drop in price accordingly.
And as a pleasant surprise, the RADEON X1900 XT was prepared (full-fledged! without any cuts!) with not 512, but 256 megabytes of memory at a recommended price of 279 US dollars.
Thus, ATI’s new line of top products will look like this (characteristics are indicated in parentheses: number of vertex pipelines/pixel shader units/texture modules/ROPS):
Competition from NVIDIA should be structured like this:
Therefore, the X1900 XT 256MB must compete with both the outgoing 7900 GT and the new 7950 GT. Because NVIDIA does not have a clear positioning at $279. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have a 7950GT with 256 megabytes on board in our laboratory, so we won’t be able to compare it with it, and it’s not possible to emulate it, since all GeForce 7800GTX, 7900GT with this amount of memory will not be able to operate at a core frequency of 550 MHz.
So, we see that the Canadian company is clearly trying to attract potential buyers in the popular price segment of 250-280 US dollars, already known for its power of 48 shader units X1900 XT, by reducing the amount of memory by half. Our tests will show what this will give.
It is clearly visible that the video card has not undergone any changes relative to previously released analogues, and differs from them only in the capacity of the installed memory chips.
The card has a TV-out socket, which is unique in its connector, and to output images to TV via both S-Video and RCA, special adapters supplied with the cards are required. You can read more about TV output. The product is also equipped with TV-in, the connection is also made through a special adapter.
Connection to analog monitors with d-Sub (VGA) is made through special DVI-to-d-Sub adapters. Maximum resolutions and frequencies:
- 240 Hz Max Refresh Rate
- 2048 x 1536 x 32bit x85Hz Max - via analog interface
- 2560 x 1600 @ 60Hz Max - via digital interface
As for the cooler, the product has the same reference cooler that we previously saw on the X1900 XT/XTX. The design is very complex and very noisy when the card heats up. We have already repeatedly described this unsuccessful cooler, because of which many supporters of ATI products groan and look for ways to get rid of this system.
Look what's going on with the heating even in the X1900 XT (not to mention the X1900 XTX)!
I would like to separately draw your attention to the fact that the actual operating frequencies of both the core and memory for all X1900XT/XTX have been reduced by 4-10 MHz for some time now relative to the previously announced ratings. But this does not help in the fight against overheating. The card is fiery, there is noise from the cooler (for example, when playing FEAR the noise becomes almost unbearable).
Video card performance summary charts
Game tests that heavily load vertex shader units, mixed pixel shader units 1.1 and 2.0, active multitexturing.
FarCry, Research
Game tests that heavily load vertex shader units, pixel shader units 2.0, active multitexturing.
F.E.A.R.
Theoretical and analytical materials and reviews of video cards, which examine the functional features of the ATI RADEON X800 (R420)/X850 (R480)/X700 (RV410) and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 (NV40/45)/6600 (NV43) GPUs
The power supply for the test bench was provided by the company HIPER
The motherboard for the test bench was provided by the company 
Rumors that even before the release of new solutions from ATI in the mid-price range, stripped-down versions of the R580 will be launched have been around for a long time. And then it happened. After all, it has long been known that among modern accelerators that support all innovations in 3D, the Canadian company had a gap in the price niche of 300 US dollars (about this amount). All previously released products, like the cut-down from the R520 - the X1800 GTO, are intended for lower-priced market segments, and the Hi-End X1900 has not yet dropped below $450. Considering that the competitor NVIDIA now has all price segments tightly covered with product lines, the position of the Canadians cannot be called enviable.
The RADEON X1900 GT was born. This is the same cut as the X1800 GTO, but not only in terms of the core, but also in terms of memory capacity, since the 256 MB X1900 XT/XTX has not yet been seen. And the X1900 GT has exactly this amount of memory.
The core is cut by 1/4: instead of 16 ROPs and texture units, there are only 12 of these modules. And there are not 48, but 36 pixel units. In addition, the operating frequencies are reduced from 625/1450 MHz for the X1900 XT to 575/1200 MHz for the X1900 G.T.
The motives are clear why such a product was released. Moreover, there is information that due to the very good percentage of usable R580s being produced, the X1900 GT ended up with full-fledged chips that were simply cut down. Of course, without the possibility of unlocking. This technique was tested a year and a half ago, and has successfully justified itself: where ATI prohibits unlocking, it cannot be done there, no matter how hard you try.
The production volume of such cards is very limited, because full-fledged cores go under the knife, so it is necessary to release so many cards so that there are enough of them until the release of the RV570 - a middling one, which will then fully occupy the same niche. Therefore, there is information so far that the X1900 GT will be only 25,000 units. So, boards may be in short supply.
Now let’s study the product itself using the example of a card from Sapphire.
Obviously, the design from the X1900XT was taken as the basis. Therefore, there is no point in describing it in detail.
The card has a TV-out socket, which is unique in its connector, and to output images to TV via both S-Video and RCA, special adapters supplied with the cards are required. You can read more about TV output. The product is also equipped with TV-in, the connection is made through a special adapter.
Connection to analog monitors with d-Sub (VGA) is made through special DVI-to-d-Sub adapters. Maximum resolutions and frequencies:
- 240 Hz Max Refresh Rate
- 2048 x 1536 x 32bit x85Hz Max - via analog interface
- 2560 x 1600 @ 60Hz Max - via digital interface
The cooling system is standard for the X1800XL/GTO, all details can be read.
The principle of operation is the same: passing air through a closed radiator. The main distinguishing disadvantage of this design is that the fan operates at decent speeds, and therefore the cooler cannot be called quiet. It is especially audible under heavy load on the core.
Equipment.
Package.
Installation and drivers
Test bench configuration:
- Computer based on Athlon 64 (939Socket)
- processor AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (2400MHz) (L2=1024K);
- ASUS A8N32 SLI Deluxe motherboard based on the NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 chipset;
- RAM 2 GB DDR SDRAM 400MHz (CAS (tCL)=2.5; RAS to CAS delay (tRCD)=3; Row Precharge (tRP)=3; tRAS=6);
- hard drive WD Caviar SE WD1600JD 160GB SATA.
- operating system Windows XP SP2; DirectX 9.0c;
- Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2070sb (21") monitor.
- ATI drivers version CATALYST 6.5; NVIDIA version 91.28.
VSync is disabled.
Monitoring carried out using the RivaTuner utility (author A. Nikolaychuk AKA Unwinder) showed that the card heats up quite high. This cooler is clearly weak. The best place to use a dual-slot solution like the X1800XT/1900XT, but, unfortunately, the developers decided otherwise.
Test results: performance comparison
We used the following tools:
- Splinter Cell Chaos Theory v.1.04 (Ubisoft) DirectX 9.0, multitexturing, testing settings maximum, shaders 3.0 (for NVIDIA cards)/shaders 2.0 (for ATI cards); HDR OFF!
- Half-Life2 (Valve/Sierra) DirectX 9.0, demo (ixbt01 Testing was carried out at maximum quality, option -dxlevel 90, presets for card types were removed in the dxsupport.cfg file.
- FarCry 1.33 (Crytek/UbiSoft), DirectX 9.0, multitexturing, demo from the Research level (launch the game with the -DEVMODE option), testing settings are all Very High.
- DOOM III (id Software/Activision) OpenGL, multi-texturing, testing settings High Quality (ANIS8x). There is an example of automating launch with increasing speed and decreasing the number of jerks (precaching). (DO NOT BE AFRAID of the black screen after the first menu, this is how it should be! It will be for 5-10 seconds, and then the demo should start)
- 3DMark05 1.20 (FutureMark) DirectX 9.0, multitexturing, testing settings trilinear,
- 3DMark06 1.02 (FutureMark) DirectX 9.0, multitexturing, testing settings trilinear,
- The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 1.10 (Starbreeze/Vivendi) OpenGL, multitexturing, testing settings maximum texture quality, Shader 2.0.
I express my gratitude Rinat Dosaev (AKA 4uckall) And Alexey Ostrovsky (AKA Ducci) for writing a demo for this game, and thank you very much Alexey Berillo AKA Somebody Else for your help
- F.E.A.R. v.1.02 (Multiplayer) (Monolith/Sierra) DirectX 9.0, multitexturing, testing settings maximum, Soft shadows disabled.
- Call Of Duty 2 DEMO (Ubisoft) DirectX 9.0, multi-texturing, testing settings maximum, shaders 2.0, testing with Benchemall,
Radeon X1900: will they be on sale?
The battle between ATi and nVidia continues. The chronology of events is as follows: in the summer of 2005, nVidia released a graphics processor nVidia 7800 GTX, which tore apart all competitors in its path, including the ATi X850 XT Platinum Edition. In October, ATi responded with the long-awaited R520 in the form X1000 line. In November, nVidia responded with a blow that brought ATI to its knees - video cards were introduced GeForce 7800 GTX 512, characterized by a larger amount of memory and higher clock speeds. By then, Nvidia had won the crown for performance leadership in both single and dual mode (SLI) modes. But then, on December 20th, ATI hit back at nVidia with the Crossfire X1800. And the situation remained this way until the current moment - until the exit Radeon X1900.
From a consumer perspective, the constant release of new products allows you to buy better hardware for less money. Of course, when key products were released every six months, some users waited a long time before purchasing the coveted new product. But the majority were happy that the previous generation card could be bought cheaper almost immediately after the release of the next new line. Now, alas, the situation has changed. The long wait for the release of nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX and Radeon X1800 XT can be considered the last in the history of the confrontation between nVidia and ATi, and they would have been shorter if ATi had not had problems with the supply of R520 chips.
And this is a big problem. In this regard, nVidia favorably outperformed ATi, which promised a lot but actually delivered little. Typical examples include the Crossfire X850 and X1800 XT. Of course, it’s easier for journalists like us, who test technical samples to provide readers with information about the capabilities of the most advanced new products. But if the product is not in stores, then why test it? This is what happened with ATi - the company attracted the attention of users with new hardware innovations, but was never able to provide stores with video cards on time. Nvidia, on the contrary, has made a fundamental decision not to announce video cards until they can appear in stores. (However, Nvidia also forgot about its principles during the demonstration of Quad-SLI in the limited edition Dell "Renegade" XPS 600 computer).
In general, the phrase “limited edition” does not have a very good connotation. How many GeForce 7800 GTX 512 video cards did nVidia really release? When we asked this question at a press conference, we were told “from several thousand to tens of thousands.” These were the words of an nVidia representative, and “tens of thousands” did not sound very confident. Does anyone know for sure?
One assembly company told us that they had no problems with shortages of Nvidia cards because the card manufacturer knew that the assembly company could easily sell expensive computers with new graphics cards for $750, and the supply priorities were determined correctly. Not a bad strategy for selling cards into a channel, but what about the average consumer who would like to buy a boxed version at retail?
It is safe to say that the situation is initially better. According to our data, several companies have already brought Radeon X1900 video cards to Russia for sale. That is, unlike the elusive Radeon X1800, with the new Radeon X1900 Fewer problems are expected.
Radeon X1900: What is XT, XTX and X1900 XT Crossfire?
Instead of releasing one or two high-end cards, ATi has now decided to announce entire families of video cards. But, unlike three chip designs like the X1800 (R520), X1600 (R530) and X1300 (R515), ATI chose one chip with four card designs: two high-end cards, a Crossfire master card and All-In-Wonder cards X1900. This option seems too simple compared to the eleven different configurations of the penultimate line. But looking at all these "X", "XT" and "XTX" we start to think that companies should choose a simpler naming system.
Let's remember a little history. At one time, ATi's top card was the "Pro" model (for example, the Radeon 9800 Pro). It was then changed to XT. Later, the company began producing so-called "limited editions" of the XT PE or XT Platinum Edition. The new ones use XTX in the name. What's next? New limited edition XTX PE cards? The naming craze has spread to the mass market. Judge for yourself: GT, GTO and GTO2. Within the GTO classification itself there are now more than three different cores, which further increases the confusion. And nVidia is not lagging behind. Just look at all these LE, GT, XT, Ultra, GS, GTX and GTX 512.
When ATi had the 9800 Pro 128 and 256 cards, the numbers 256 and 128 only indicated memory capacity. In the case of the GeForce 7800 GTX and GeForce 7800 GTX 512, the situation is different: the cards are equipped with different cores and memory capacities. And the marketing departments of both companies really liked the letters G, T and X. It seems that here the graphics industry is approaching the automotive industry. After all, the letters R, S and Z look great too...
Various Radeon X1900 models
ATi presented only four video cards: Radeon X1900 XTX, Radeon X1900 XT, Radeon X1900 Crossfire and All-In-Wonder Radeon X1900. All of them are based on the R580 graphics core, but operate at different frequencies. The All-In-Wonder is a 256MB card with a 500MHz core and 480MHz memory (we're talking about the physical clock, not the effective DDR, which is 960MHz).
The Crossfire master card uses the same core and memory as the X1900 XT. The main difference between this card and the Radeon X1900XT version are two DVI outputs and a Xilinx image merging chip. So you can enjoy games in high definition in Crossfire mode. If you remember the release of the X850 Crossfire, the fusion chip caused complaints among some users, since the maximum resolution was 1600x1200 @ 60 Hz, and high-resolution games had to be forgotten on the X850 Crossfire.
The Radeon X1900 XT and Radeon X1900 XT Crossfire cards use a 626 MHz graphics core with 512 MB GDDR3 memory at 1.45 GHz (physical frequency 725 MHz). The Radeon X1900 Crossfire has a suggested retail price of $600, while the Radeon X1900 XT has a suggested retail price of $550.
The top model is the Radeon X1900 XTX. This video card operates with a core clock speed of 650 MHz and memory speed of 1.55 GHz. There's little difference in clock speed between the XT and XTX; you pay an extra $50 for 25 MHz core and 50 MHz memory. Of course, if you only want the best, then $50 is quite reasonable.
What's new in Radeon X1900
The core design has been redesigned to accommodate new features and remove limitations that previous models had. By adding 60 million transistors, the number of pixel pipelines in the Radeon X1900 increased to 48. Or, in modern industry parlance, up to 48 pixel processors. A nearly twenty percent increase in transistor count results in more than 384 million transistors in the R580-core Radeon X1900.
Radeon X1900 core.
ATi still groups pixel engines in blocks of four (called "quads"). Each Radeon X1900 block can work on its own data stream. Of course, the Radeon X1900 graphics chip splits the workload into multiple threads, delivering them to different blocks. A special Ultra-Threading dispatch engine is responsible for this. It ensures that all Radeon X1900 units are fully loaded so that data is processed as quickly as possible. With effective dispatching, memory delays and other negative factors can be eliminated.
In the Radeon X1800 line, a fifth Branch Execution Unit was added to each pixel processor (pipeline), which remained in the Radeon X1900 line. That is, conditional branching operations have been transferred to pixel processors, which now process only those pixels that are required by the condition. Pixel processors have built-in flow control units that help reduce the load on the dispatch processor. Each Radeon X1900 pixel processor can execute from one to five instructions per clock cycle, depending on their type.
ATI added another 50% Hi-Z cache. The additional cache allows the R580 to speed up Z-testing, meaning it can more quickly calculate which surfaces are invisible and exclude them from rendering calculations. Increasing the Radeon X1900 cache will be especially useful at high resolutions, for example at 2048x1536. As a result, coupled with increased pixel processing power, you will be able to play at the usual fps at higher resolutions.
To further speed up calculations, ATI has added Fetch4 to the Radeon X1900, which makes it easier to create soft shadows. Indeed, in the real world, shadows do not have sharp boundaries. The situation is complicated by numerous light sources.
Previously, 3D shadow graphics were typically created with a clear boundary between shadow and light. To create the illusion of a real world using soft shadows, I had to turn to the help of special shadow maps.
ATi Fetch4 technology allows you to process four contiguous values from a shadow map at the same time, theoretically quadruple the speed. Recall that regular textures use four color description channels, while shadow maps (the example taken by ATi) use one channel per pixel. Thus, the R520 core can only process one pixel channel per clock (and the hardware for processing the other three channels is idle), while the R580 core in the Radeon X1900 allows all hardware resources to be used to process four pixel data. Using Ultra-Threading, Fast Thread Control and Fetch4, ATi says the Radeon X1900 will "create beautiful soft shadows at speeds close to traditional hard shadow technologies." It is quite clear that the result will still have to be evaluated in practice, but the tests speak for themselves. ATi has taken another step forward, allowing you to comfortably play F.E.A.R. with soft shadows turned on.
Radeon X1900 XTX: the largest video card
For testing, we received Radeon X1900 Crossfire and Radeon X1900 XTX video cards from ATi. The textolite of the video cards turned out to be so long that it even blocked the SATA ports on the motherboard. However, this does not mean that you will encounter the same problem - it all depends on the layout of your motherboard. Of course, the same can be said about the latest nVidia cards, and the Radeon X1900 models are the same length as the Radeon X1800 cards. What can you do, you have to pay such a price for speed. Namely, to sacrifice space, low noise levels, low energy consumption and, of course, money.
The cooler here is the same dual-slot solution as the X1800. However, the cooler in the retail version of the Radeon X1900 Crossfire uses black plastic, as opposed to white plastic for slave cards. The cooler fan is very loud during driver installation. And the Crossfire system makes even more noise. Once the drivers are successfully installed, the sound will no longer be so annoying. Of course, when the system is loaded, the fans operate at maximum speed, but after activating the driver, the noise decreases.
The cooling system, reminiscent of the Radeon X1800, is, in our opinion, too heavy due to the large amount of copper. The radiator also cools the memory chips and the picture mixing chip (on the Crossfire card). Copper "legs" connect the chips and the radiator core of the Radeon X1900. We conducted an experiment and turned off the cooler. In principle, the system works very well - the video card was able to work even with the fan turned off. In 2D mode, the card functioned normally, although its temperature was, of course, higher than usual. But when switching to 3D mode, the system froze, and we had to reboot it. After connecting the power everything worked fine, so hopefully the card won't burn out if the fan fails.
The cards we received were tested on the reference RD480 motherboard that we used in previous Crossfire testing. Although ATi recently released the Catalyst 6.1 driver, this version did not work with the received video cards. We had to test Radeon X1900 cards using a specially sent driver. For the remaining ATi cards (Radeon X1800), we used the latest Catalyst 6.1 driver.
Configuration for Radeon X1900 tests
| System hardware | |
| CPU | AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 2.8 GHz, 1.0 GHz HTT, 1 MB L2 cache |
| Platform | Asus AN8-SLI Premium nVidia nForce4 SLI, BIOS version 1005 ATi Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition - Reference ATI Xpress 200, BIOS version 02.58 |
| Memory | Corsair CMX1024-4400Pro 2x 1024 MB @ DDR400 (CL3.0-4-4-8) |
| HDD | Western Digital Raptor, WD740GD 74 GB, 10,000 rpm, 8 MB cache, SATA150 |
| Net | Built-in Gigabit Ethernet nForce4 |
| Graphic cards | ATi Radeon X1900 XTX 512 MB GDDR3, 650 MHz core, 1.55 GHz memory ATi Radeon X1900XT 512 MB GDDR3, 625 MHz core, 1.45 GHz memory ATi Radeon X1800XT 512 MB GDDR3, 625 MHz core, 1.50 GHz memory nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX 512 256 MB GDDR3, 550 MHz core, 1.7 GHz memory |
| power unit | PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1000 W |
| System Software and Drivers | |
| OS | Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.10.2600, Service Pack 2 |
| DirectX version | 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) |
| Platform Driver | ATi Reference CrossFire - Asus - nForce 6.65 |
| Graphics driver | ATi - Catalyst 6.1 WHQL ATi - Catalyst 6.1 (for X1900 line of cards), beta, non-WHQL nVidia - Forceware 81.98 WHQL |
Power consumption of Radeon X1900: less or more?
Traditionally, as computing power increases, energy consumption also increases. ATI has increased the number of transistors by almost 20%, so we were interested to see how this would affect power consumption.
As you can see, ATi has made a lot of improvements in this area. The X1800 XT Crossfire consumes more power at peak than the nVidia 7800 GTX 512 in SLI configuration. Below is the power consumption during boot and idle mode. As you can see, both systems consume approximately the same amount of energy with practically inactive cards. In the end, as it turns out, ATi was able to use less power and do more. As the test results will show, ATi is in the lead in 19 of 28 tests, and nVidia is in the remaining 9.
Radeon X1900: test results
3DMark is often referred to as a "gamer test" and THG has been using different versions of this test for several years. 3DMark scores are relative to a reference system. The higher the scores, the higher the system performance compared to the reference. With each new version of 3DMark, scores are revised to ensure they do not increase astronomically high. This test is widely used in the industry. The latest version of 3DMark came out last week, but we've had some issues with a number of cards, so we think it's too early to add it to our testing suite (we always test test apps quite a bit before we start using them). In the future, we plan to remove 3DMark 2003 from tests, but will continue to use 3DMark 2005.
Radeon X1900 in Far Cry
Let's move on from synthetic Radeon X1900 tests to gaming ones. Most games are built on so-called engines, which evolve year after year, following the progress in the field of video cards. Let's start the Radeon X1900 test with the game Far Cry, which is built on the Crytek engine. This engine is one of many, but Far Cry loads the graphics card well with textures, shadows and lighting. During tests, the in-game flashlight was turned on. We used Cooler01's own demo to ensure independent results. Far Cry also supports HDR (High Dynamic Range).
Radeon X1900 in Doom 3
The next gaming test for the Radeon X1900 was Doom 3. It is capable of bringing all cards to their knees due to the use of complex lighting. We used Doom 3's stock timedemo "demo1" for each of our Radeon X1900 tests. First, the video card driver was set to the “application controlled” setting. Then for the first run we turned off FSAA and turned on the high quality setting. At the same time, anisotropic filtering was turned on (in 8x mode). For the second run, we turned FSAA to 4x mode to load the graphics card to the maximum.
Among the new games on the Doom 3 engine, we can mention Quake 4, which gives about the same results as Doom 3. So, what are the results of the Radeon X1900?
Radeon X1900 in Half-Life 2
Which game was the highlight of 2004, and which game was just as successful in 2005? Of course, this is Half-Life 2. The developer is Valve, which created the Source engine, which is used in Half-Life 2. HL2 loads the processor a lot, so the game is a good test not only of the latest graphics cards like the Radeon X1900, but also of overall system performance . By the way, HL2 has very nice graphics. During Valve Software's latest update, HDR support was added to Half-Life 2. To test the Radeon X1900, we used our own demo DP_Coast_01.dem.
Radeon X1900 in Black & White 2
Let's move on to the new game from Lionhead Studios. This "God simulator" uses HDR, Shader Model 3.0 and advanced terrain, which makes the graphics card work hard. In Black & White 2, for the Radeon X1900 tests, we turned on all graphics functions to the maximum, with the exception of distortion and anti-aliasing. For the second test run, we left distortion turned on and set anti-aliasing to Full mode. We used the FRAPS utility to record the frame rate. Testing was carried out on the screensaver of the second Japanese "meeting".
Radeon X1900 in F.E.A.R.
Our testing of the Radeon X1900 ends with the game F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon. It is a relatively new game. This modern shooter loads the GPU to capacity. The level of detail can be set to any level: from boring ordinary graphics to amazing visual quality with numerous reflective surfaces. If you select maximum quality, most graphics cards will display a slideshow. F.E.A.R. supports soft shadows, but at the cost of a significant performance hit. In the first run, we selected the maximum quality, but turned off soft shadows. In the second run we enabled them. We had to use the driver settings because turning on soft shadows and anti-aliasing simultaneously in the game resulted in inaccurate measurements. So, what will the Radeon X1900 show us?
Radeon X1900: frame rate dynamics tests
Since last month, we decided to publish additional graphs showing the dynamics of frame rate changes, since they are of interest to many readers. The fact is that the load on the GPU changes during the game. For example, at some time only narrow corridors with sharp turns are visible on the screen. Few textures and objects are displayed, and the map, in principle, is not particularly loaded. But as soon as you get into a large room with fire, smoke, enemies and shooting, the system instantly goes from 130 frames per second to 40 or even less.
If the frequency drops below 30 frames per second, then the game noticeably begins to “slow down”. At the same time, only a few players can discern the difference in frame rates between the 60-70 level and higher values. Therefore, everything that is higher no longer affects the gaming experience. This is why we recommend that users remember to enable quality settings that allow them to get the best picture.
For our Radeon X1900 dynamics tests, we used FRAPS, which records the average frame rate for every second in Black & White 2 and F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon. At the same time, it was not possible to use the FRAPS test for all games. The point is that the slower the system, the longer the test will take to complete. If a demo runs longer on one machine than on another, the slow system will have more checkpoints recorded. That's why we couldn't use games like Half-Life 2 because the results were very difficult to compare.
Dynamics of Radeon X1900 in Black & White 2
In Black & White we have included all the features except distortion. During the first run, we turned off anti-aliasing and set the resolution to 1024x768. During the second run, we turned on anti-aliasing and switched to 1600x1200 resolution. In each graph, the red line represents the critical level of 30 frames per second.
Dynamics of Radeon X1900 in F.E.A.R.
In the first run of F.E.A.R, we decided to simplify the conditions: we turned off anti-aliasing (AA), anisotropic filtering (AF) and soft shadows (SS) at a resolution of 1024x768. The second run was carried out with the game resolution at 1600x1200 with soft shadows, anisotropic filtering 8x and full screen anti-aliasing (8x) enabled. Again, in each graph, the 30 fps level is shown as a red line.
Radeon X1900: conclusion
ATi certainly did a good job with the Radeon X1900. The 48-pipeline power that was previously only available in dual-card solutions is now available in a single X1900 XTX chip. And in Crossfire mode, ATi was able to squeeze out a lot of additional frames per second.
At the same time, low-resolution games reduce the need for powerful graphics cards as the rest of the computer's components begin to hold back peak frame rates. Roughly speaking, it is not the capabilities of the Radeon X1900 that are important, but the performance of the processor, memory, disk, etc. This is why in games it is important to evaluate not the average or peak frame rate, but the value of the minimum frame rate for each second of the game. What can we say? Of course, the GeForce 7800 GTX 512 video card can be called powerful, but the Radeon X1900 turned out to be a step higher.
For users who want a graphics card for resolutions higher than 1600x1200, you can hardly ask for anything other than the Radeon X1900. Games that previously ran fine only at 1024x768 resolution now run quite well on the Radeon X1900 at 1600x1200. While professional gamers continue to play at low resolutions and maximum frame rates, most users want to enjoy new monitors that are bigger, brighter and more comfortable. The Radeon X1900 will help them a lot with this.
In the new year of 2006, we will take a closer look at the needs of the typical gamer. If there is a trend toward high-resolution games, then our tests will follow in the same direction. Another interesting question is the different technological approaches of ATi and nVidia, which are very interesting to compare and reveal some interesting details. As one of the experts said, “graphics is like the Chinese art of chi-ting: you need to produce maximum results with a minimum of effort.” And every company makes considerable efforts in this direction.
Well, for now let's be happy for ATi. With the Radeon X1900, the company achieved victory in the single and dual graphics solutions segments. Are we waiting for another response from nVidia?
Discussion of test results Radeon X1900 runs in .